Jennings Superintendent’s Departure: Lessons for Education Policy

Posted on by Michael Q. McShane

Tiffany Anderson, the superintendent of the Jennings school district, is leaving to head up the Topeka, Kansas, school district. By all accounts Dr. Anderson is a rock star.  When she assumed control of the school district in 2012 it was in bad shape, deeply in the red and severely underperforming.  It has now reached full accreditation and is back in the black. She will be sorely missed.

There is a lesson to learn here. It is one that people across the country have found when their great superintendent leaves for greener pastures.  We cannot have school systems that are completely dependent on a one-in-a-million talent at the helm in order to succeed.  There is only one Tiffany Anderson.  Missouri has 520 school districts.

One of the main reasons that I advocate for a decentralized schooling system is that it is more resilient to the shocks that occur in everyday life. People move. People’s life priorities change.  People die. If, for example, a school district is run by a collection of independent charter school operators and one amazing principal leaves, there is a limit to the disruption in the equilibrium of the system. But if power is centralized and the person at the top leaves, the whole system is affected.

Tiffany Anderson is proof that there are great leaders out there who can turn around struggling organizations. The problem is that there just aren’t enough of them.  Our response should not be to bemoan this fact, just like it doesn’t make sense to get upset at blizzards or floods or thunderstorms.  We should try and build systems that can handle the snow, the rain, and the wind.

We will have to see if the Jennings district is resilient enough to absorb the loss. For its kids’ sake I hope it is. But if it isn’t, we’ve got to start moving toward a better way.

A Must-Watch Video about Teacher Pensions

Posted on by James V. Shuls

For years now, scholars at the Show-Me Institute have been writing about the problems with teacher pensions.  Don’t believe me? Just look at this impressive list of publications:

The Funding Status of State and Local Government Pensions in Missouri – Andrew Biggs, Ph.D.             

Betting on the Big Returns: How Missouri Teacher Pension Plans Have Shifted to Riskier Assets –James Shuls, Ph.D., and Michael Rathbone

Pension Reform in Missouri – Erin Hawley

Teacher Pension Enhancement in Missouri: 1975 to the Present – Robert Costrell, Ph.D.

Missouri Transition Costs and Public Pension Reform – Andrew Biggs, Ph.D.

Public Employee Pensions In Missouri: A Looming Crisis – Andrew Biggs, Ph.D.

But as informative and compelling as these papers are, there is just something engaging about a video with hand-drawn illustrations. That’s why I love this new video released by TeacherPensions.org, a project of Bellwether Education Partners. In less than three minutes, the video shows the key problems with teacher pensions. Check it out.

Kansas City Government Union Embezzlement Shows Need for Greater Transparency

Posted on by John Wright

The former head of an AFSCME local representing Kansas City corrections officers pleaded guilty to a federal wire fraud scheme this week. Lowell Wreh, the former AFSCME executive, admitted to embezzling $7,642 in checks from the union's bank account to himself and others for his own benefit and personal use. This story is an example of why Missouri government workers deserve the same transparency from their union representation that private sector union workers have enjoyed since the 1950s.

In 1959 Congress passed the Labor-Management Reporting and Disclosure Act (LMRDA), a powerful set of protections for unionized workers and a much-needed check on the power of union executives. Among other things, the LMRDA required all private sector unions to disclose their finances annually in what are called “LM filings.”

The impact of the LMRDA was huge. Although it didn’t fix everything, workers and journalists were better able to discover instances of self-dealing by looking through LM filings. In many cases this meant a better, more responsive union. The lack of secrecy in union finances is still helping workers hold their union leadership accountable.

Unfortunately, the LMRDA does not apply to Missouri’s government unions. As a result, public sector workers have no easy way of finding out where their dues go, which hinders their ability to question the use of these funds. Self-dealing schemes like the kind this AFSCME executive took part in become harder to uncover when union finances are not transparent.

Our public sector workers deserve the same level of protection that private sector workers have enjoyed for decades. It’s time to close the gap between the public and private sectors. Government unions should be at least as transparent as their private sector counterparts.

Kansas City’s Secret Streetcar Plan

Posted on by Patrick Tuohey

American Public Square hosted a panel discussion at the Kansas City Public Library on January 20, and I was privileged to be included. No new new ground was broken: streetcars remain very expensive investments that do not effectively or efficiently move people where they want to go; and they certainly do not themselves contribute to economic development.

What was remarkable about the discussion is what was not said. Specifically, the representative of the Kansas City Regional Transit Alliance, funded with taxpayer dollars, refuses to share its plans for a streetcar expansion campaign. Below is a transcript of the segment in which I repeatedly ask if KCTRA will make it's presentations public. You can see it thanks to a short, low quality Periscope video here (transcript starts at 1:53). 

Patrick Tuohey (Show-Me Institute): Your organization has made presentations on next steps, correct?

Dave Johnson (KCRTA): We’re talking to all kinds of people about things that are possible, especially using the transportation development district.

SMI: Will you share those plans publicly?

KCRTA: We’re talking to people about the Main Street corridor. That shouldn't be a surprise to anybody.

SMI: So the presentation you made the Downtown Council, will you share that?

KCRTA: That is a presentation that just talks about extending the streetcar to UMKC. That’s what I’m telling you right now. Theres no secret.

SMI: …So the answer is yes, you’ll share it with us?

KCRTA: It’s got a lot of boring financials.

SMI: I would love to see the boring financials.

KCRTA: It’s the same financials you voted on in the expansion plan in 2014.

SMI: Do you commit to sharing the presentation you made the Downtown Council public?

KCRTA: We’re a simple non-profit so we don’t have to share that information.

SMI: I’m not saying that you have to share it with the public, I’m asking. Will you share that plan publicly?

KCRTA: No.

The KCRTA is funded with taxpayer dollars. Regardless of whether they are subject to disclosure laws, the KCRTA should immediately share with the public how they have been spending public money and what presentations they have about next steps. If they do not, the Mayor and City Council should demand they do so, or withhold all future contributions. Good public policy requires nothing less than complete transparency.

 

Downtown Saint Louis Restaurants: Coming or Going?

Posted on by Joseph Miller

With the recent closure of a number of downtown establishments (the most recent being Mike Shannon’s), local media are considering Saint Louis’s restaurant scene, especially in the city’s central business district (CBD). Some local politicians and restaurateurs are pointing the finger at Ballpark Village, accusing it of taking business and putting the nail in the coffin of local bars and restaurants. The Post-Dispatch interviewed other restaurateurs who took a more circumspect tone, claiming restaurant industry growth is strong and blaming closures on changing tastes. But what do the data show?

In terms of the current state of restaurants downtown, it is hard to get enough information to move beyond anecdote. But if we analyze the latest census data for three zip codes containing downtown and west downtown (63101, 63102, and 63103), we can glean some knowledge about the state of downtown dining in the recent past and its trend over time. The data show that from 2000 to 2013, total full-service restaurants in the three zip codes above increased by 21 establishments (a 34% improvement). The added restaurants employed more people, too. In 2000, only 29 restaurants had more than 20 employees. By 2013, 52 did. So there were not only more restaurants, but they were larger.

Unfortunately, it was not all good news. The vast majority of restaurant additions were in the 63103 zip code, which not only contains West Downtown, but also much of Midtown, the SLU Campus, and Grand Center. If we just look at the heart of downtown and the area around Busch Stadium (63101 and 63102) there were barely any more full service restaurants in 2013 than there were in 2000:

Taking a look at the city as a whole, the zip codes containing just the downtown neighborhood performed poorly when compared to other parts of the central corridor as well as areas in the South Saint Louis City. Some areas of the city lost restaurants during the same period, but this only took place in depressed areas of North City.  

Looking at everything together, it seems clear that the city as a whole added restaurants from 2000 to 2013, but progress was spotty. Some areas were contracting, others were expanding, and still others were treading water. The situation may have changed in 2014 and 2015, but we will leave that to future analysis. Just looking at the latest available census data, the downtown neighborhood was in the treading-water category. 

Course Access for Missouri Students

Posted on by Brittany Wagner

A high-school diploma is widely considered to be the most fundamental requirement for admission to college or a chance at a good job. And so it should be—but what’s behind that diploma matters, too. Statistics from ACT show that only 30 percent of the class of 2015 scored "college ready" in all four tested subjects. Much of the problem appears to be a gap between the coursework these students complete to earn their high-school diplomas and the work required for their college classes. Here Missouri faces a problem that doesn’t afflict more densely populated states: we have many small, rural school districts that don’t have the means to offer advanced math and science courses for college-bound students—or cutting-edge career or technical education classes for students who want to enter the workforce immediately after graduating—especially if relatively few students are interested in taking them.

We can’t do a lot about our state’s geography, but neither can we accept limitations on the educational options available to students in smaller school districts. We need a way to bring advanced-level coursework to every Missouri student who wants it. An innovative program called course access offers a possible solution to this problem, and it’s the topic of an essay by the Show-Me Institute’s Brittany Wagner and Michael McShane. To find out more, click on the link below and read the essay.

 

Dodging the Stadium Bullet

Posted on by Rik W. Hafer

Think of those times when you ignored your parents’ warnings about some behavior (smoking, staying out too late, etc.) because, well, it came from your parents. But when the same admonitions came from someone else, you heeded their advice.  This is one of those times.

Show-Me Institute analysts have written at length about the now-failed Rams stadium deal.  (A recent post by Joseph Miller takes a look back at the whole ugly process.) The bottom line is that the proposed billion-dollar deal simply never made fiscal sense for the city or the state.  Keeping the Rams in Saint Louis would have been a winner’s curse.  Even so, until the last minute, ardent Rams supporters and many public officials dismissed this position: such arguments simply were against the public good.

So along comes Joe Nocera, a highly-regarded columnist for the New York Times.  Consider him one of the “other” adults in the room.  The title of his recent article says it all:  “In Losing the Rams, St. Louis Wins.”

The gist of Nocera’s argument aligns closely with the analysis and advice proposed in past Show-Me writings (and by others as well).  Here’s a small, though representative, sampling:

“But the economics underpinning the recent deal St. Louis and the State of Missouri tried to put together to keep the Rams would have been financially ruinous…[St. Louis] simply couldn’t afford to help finance the $1 billion stadium.”

“The contortions St. Louis and the State of Missouri put themselves through to keep the Rams would be comical if they weren’t so sad.”

And in response to a prominent St. Louis political leader’s post-announcement blog post that he now has “no real interest in the NFL,” Nocera intones “Better late than never.”

Next time public officials start a campaign to throw public money at a billionaire’s pet project in the name of the public good, just remember what Mr. Nocera said.

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